[KLUG Members] Bryan J. Smith

[p. buxton]

I'm Peter Buxton, or peter@killdevil.org. I apologize for posting from 
Hotmail, but I am between ISP's so somewhat desperate. I have two other 
addresses but it would be unprofessional to use them on this list. I hope 
this message comes across with halfway decent formatting.


PROBLEM:

I unsubscribed on the 31st of December. This week, Wednesday or
Thursday, I decided to catch up on KLUG traffic and so hit the list
archives. After catching up, I have to say this: Bryan J. Smith uses a
modicum of talent and a membership in IEEE to harass others and show
off at the expense of the list as a whole.

ARGUMENTS:

My current objections:

1. I have seen him use the term '*MEGA-IGNORANT*' [sic] in what he calls
   a 'technical" discussion:'

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2003-January/006291.html

   > This is *MEGA-IGNORANT* statement that I see over and over and
   > over.  As Linux users, we are supposed to be
   > _technically_accurate_.  As such, don't believe this common, but
   > quite _false_ view!

Statements are not ignorant, they are true or false or semantically
null. *Authors* can be biased, stupid, wise, pathological liars,
ad nauseum. This is not a mere mistake on Bryan's part: he's called
people ignorant before and he is here doing it again with indirection:
labeling a sentence with a word that can only apply to its author.

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2002-November/005527.html

   > And that's what this whole thread was about!  It was about your
   > _ignorant_ ass-u-mptions of AMD that were _not_ true.  Buy Intel if

It is his favorite insult. He's the only person on the list that uses it
except for Adam, who has used it to describe programs and Earthlink, not
people on this list.

   > > Let's go to Advocacy.....
   >
   > Er, outside of political comments (like the Microsoft/Autodesk
   > non-sense), I want to keep this 100% _technical_.

Of course, Bryan is misleading us when he calls this a technical
discussion. It is a Holy War:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/holy-wars.html

The war in question is, 'Which is better: totally standards-driven
formats or vendor-supported formats?' Now, if I buy my truck fleet with
Cummins(TM) engines, I am pretty dependent on Cummins for service.
Though it is possible at a later date to rip out the engines and replace
them, that option remains expensive and impractical. Nevertheless,
businesses make decisions like these all the time and continue to
thrive. In this context, if someone's boss decides to continue to rely
on MS, well, that is his or her decision. Abusing someone on our list
for their boss's decision is foolish and ineffective unless the true
purpose of these remarks is self-aggrandizement by abusing others.

Standards against vendors: immediate features versus long-term support.
If you decide between ATA and SCSI, you balance the risk of outlay v.
future performance. There are no 'right' answers to these questions but
that fact does not stop Bryan. He's simply full of misstatements that
render his intuition suspect:

   > Trying to guess Linux marketshare is trying to guess long-term
   > virus infections.

It's called epidemiology. Look it up.


2. He declared Professor Donald Knuth "infamous" and typoed his name to
   boot.

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2003-January/006366.html

   > For those not familiar with TeX (pron. "tek"), it was developed by
   > the infamous Donald Kunth.

He doesn't say why the gentle Knuth is supposedly infamous, so I may
only assume it is for one of his two most famous works, _The Art of
Computer Programming_ or TeX. Since he doesn't mention _TAoCP_ and
doesn't claim that Knuth molested him as a child, I assume he's upset
over TeX:

   > Unlike SGML/DSSSL or XML/XSL which have strict content/style
   > separation, TeX is content and style markup in one.=20 Backslashes
   > (\) are the control characters for tags, which is rather messy in
   > today's world of markup.  It also has a never-ending spagetti
   > sprawl of "macros" for just about every need, most infamous is
   > LaTeX (pron.  "la-tek").  It's a "breathing" document language with
   > no boundaries (or control for that matter).

TeX, famously, was invented by Knuth for his book on algorithms.  He
found that no good, general typesetting language was available, so he
wrote one. Physical typesetting is, needless to say, a VERY different
beast than data management/transforms, and Tex, from the late '70's, is
indeed very different from, say, SGML, which was not standardized until
1983.  Never try to compare the two: it is like comparing apples and
mountains. TeX is no more 'wrong' than was ITS.

Again, Bryan is using a Holy War (and poor Prof. Knuth) to flap his flag
over us all.


3. Straw men.

#2 above shows the use of TeX as a straw man.

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2003-January/006290.html

   > but we do need better applications on Linux so we can share the
   > data better with Windows. I'm thinking here of StarOffice/Microsoft
   > Office. StarOffice is nice but there are still those weird docs
   > that don't work.

Bryan turned this user's off-hand, vague complaint into:

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2003-January/006357.html

   > Just remember what the original thread was regarding.  It was
   > regarding the need for an Open Source office suite to read all MS
   > Office formats as good as Microsoft.  He expected instant reverse
   > engineering with the latest formats, not recognizing the sheer
   > effort required to do so.

Better becomes perfect, some unspecified day becomes instant. This
skates the edge of libel.

What did the original poster really want? Microsoft filters? An XML
world? The chance to complain about his annoying boss? We may never know
from reading Bryan's reply. Gore Vidal once wrote "A good writer pulls
the material to himself." Well, in this respect Bryan is a good writer,
but half the questions he doesn't merely soapbox are twisted into
support for his favorite wang-bangers[1] or attacks on them, whereupon
they are vigorously, endlessly, POINTLESSLY defended against -- NOTHING!
No one else cares so much but that's not the point. Bryan's idols must
be attacked so Bryan may save them in a technological Munchhausen by
proxy.

Any actual information he may have is lost in his noise.

[1] XML, M$, Serial ATA, the marvels of whatever it is that Bryan has
decided is 'dreamy.'


4. I looked this guy up on the Net.

I will not, here, detail the mail messages I found today from other LUG
lists. You want to see 'em, you look 'em up.  Suffice it to say that in
my opinion neither his arguments nor his personality have changed a bit
and my considered opinion is that he will NEVER cease from the
following:

a. He offends and apologizes, offends and apologizes, offends and
apologizes: he's been doing it since 2000 at least. He claims he makes
up for wrongs easily: I have no doubt he does for two reasons: he never
stops insulting people in every other mail and his apologies mean
nothing. There is no contrition, no Calvinist regeneration. His
apologies are left-handed, insulting, self-aggrandizing and
-justifying....  Worthless.

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2002-December/005566.html

Like the child who addends justifications to its apology, Bryan is not
contrite. He is deflecting blame and wearing down our defenses for the
NEXT time he breaks the rules. He says, outright, that he will never
change, just repeat the cycle. This is willful, not weakness.

b. He develops 'enemies.' Listmasters especially.

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2002-December/005557.html

   > A major problem is when someone uses a "loophole" in a bylaw to
   > remove his "critics."  One such move was to call anything I said as
   > "slander," even though it was proven as true, and remove me from
   > the list without a leadership vote (again, due to a small
   > "loophole" in the bylaws).

c. He is the problem whereof he speaks:

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2003-January/006348.html

   > [ SIDE NOTE:  I think some people need to read ESR on how people
   > destroy a support list.  It's not the perceived "problem," but the
   > massive number of follow-up posts that talk about it. ]

Then why respond to himself ALL THE TIME?

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/pipermail/members/2003-January/thread.html

[KLUG Members] 100% Technical: Sun XML, VBscript conversion and other 
efforts ...   Bryan J. Smith
\___ * [KLUG Members] Re: 100% Technical: Sun XML, VBscript conversion and 
other efforts ...   Bryan J. Smith
\___ * [KLUG Members] Re: Sun XML, VBscript conversion and other efforts -- 
ADVO addendeum ...   Bryan J. Smith
    \___ * [KLUG Members] Re: Sun XML, VBscript conversion and other efforts 
-- WRONG LIST   Bryan J. Smith
\___ * [KLUG Members] Re: 100% Technical: Sun XML, VBscript conversion and 
other efforts ...   Bryan J. Smith


SOLUTIONS:

Hey: if I really don't like this guy, why not just killfile him? Why
don't we all? Because he won't go away and we won't see the damage he'll
do to those who don't know how to work killfiles (who, despite this fear
or ignorance, do not really deserve to suffer for it) or to the newbies
who don't know who he is. Also, I feel honor-bound not to turn away from
problems.

I agree with Eric Raymond that the problem is that follow-ups go on and
on; I do not propose doing so. I do not believe in ignoring problems or
appeasing their makers. One solution is truly effective and implemented:
abuse regulations.  Our rules for the privilege of using this list, a
public service provided by KLUG and its supporting members, 'suggest'
that we users be polite:

http://www.kalamazoolinux.org/listserv/listserv.php3

   "Praise in public; criticize in private." It's OK to correct factual
   errors on the list as long as you are polite and just correct the
   facts.  Don't attack the author. Be careful about uses of "you" and
   "your" in replies, since they make the response personal.

Buried in those suggestions is an outright command: "Don't attack the
author." I say that means: No abuse. The penalty is implicit, but there:
these are the rules of the service. No rules, no service.

   We do not accept and cannot support advertising messages on this
   mailing list. Advertising is a message intended to solicit commerce
   for the benefit of the sender. The officers of KLUG, and operators of
   the KLUG mailing list shall be the sole judges of what constitutes
   advertising.

The rules do not explicitly declare the method of removal for abuse.
However, if we may extrapolate from the rules for advertising, this
judgment may fairly be said to reside in the KLUG officers.


ACCUSATION:

I say that Bryan J. Smith is an abusive poster and a recidivist and I
hereby petition the KLUG officers to find him abusive and remove him
from the list.

If necessary, as a supporting member, I will so petition the officers at
the next weekly meeting. If this issue is not taken up in a timely
manner and a decision made, I will resign my supporting membership as I
have better things to do with $25 than subsidize speech that 1337
IRC'ers would qualify as low and amateurish.

Thank you.


Peter B. Buxton

--
Though nothing is wasted, everything is spent. -- Annie Dillard
But to live outside the law you must be honest.... -- Bob Dylan

_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8 is here: Try it free* for 2 months 
http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup