October 2nd, 2007 by
Daniel ElstnerPlease. Let’s stop with the politics on Planet GNOME.
Usually I just skip over your posts but today you definitely went too far. I really, really don’t want to be drawn into a debate about politics on Planet GNOME, but I can’t just leave this unanswered either. In order to avoid turning the Planet into a political discussion board, can we please all agree to avoid posting about our personal political views? I don’t care about the occasional remark or so, but please, Miguel, stop the regular promotion of your partisan political views. Let’s keep the Planet peaceful.
Dear readers, you may now tear me apart.
Update: Looks like I’ve taken a lot of steam for that one. Well you can stop now. Everyone, I was wrong and should have posted a rebuttal instead.
Chris Cunningham says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 00:45
Oh no, partisan. Can’t have important figures in the free software movement being partisan.
Telling Miguel de Icaza what to post on Planet GNOME definitely ranks up with telling Ian Murdock what to post on Planet Debian. pgo’s actually competing with pdo this week in terms of cringeworthy posts.
– Chris
ken says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 00:49
Stop it, Daniel.
Please. Let’s stop with the “stop blogging about $TOPIC” posts on Planet GNOME.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 00:57
OK, maybe I expressed my point badly. Sorry. Let’s try again.
First, I have no problem with Miguel being partisan. My problem is that he uses Planet GNOME for promoting his political agenda regularly. Now I’m left with the choice of either acting irresponsibly by challenging him and turning the Planet into a battle ground, or just letting him get away with it unchallenged.
Do you understand why I think that’s unfair?
Chris Cunningham says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:06
Yes. Your comprehension of the purpose of pgo is way off.
You’re free to challenge him. This would entail coming up with a counter-argument. Instead, you’ve opted for the “shut up if you’re not talking about software” approach. Now maybe you’re one of the five people in the world who loves hearing daily insights about how juicy the milk from Microsoft’s cloned bosom is, but to be honest I’d take most anything from Miguel above another Silverlight post right now. There are web-based svn frontends for viewing project changelogs for those people who view Planet as nothing more than a series of software progress reports.
– Chris
Simon says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:12
Just what was it Miguel posted that “definitely went too far”? He mentioned a book, said he liked it, and said that the authors were speaking at MIT. Where does he “promote his political agenda”? It’s very tame and unconfrontational as posts go.
Scott says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:15
I agree 100% with you Daniel. I read this Planet to get information on GNOME. If I want daily reminders that Bush is going to get impeached tomorrow, I’ll read Digg.
Vincent Geddes says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:16
Well, what’s your hidden political agenda? Seems like what he said ticked you off because of your political views, so you fight back by telling him to be quiet. Therefore you are guilty of the same charge you are accusing Miguel of.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:16
The point is that I explicitly want to avoid starting a political discussion on the Planet. Obviously I can’t go the counter-arguments route without starting a discussion.
Nowhere did I say that Planet GNOME should be restricted to technical topics alone. I’m even fine with the occasional politics post. The issue is simply that Miguel seems to intentionally use the Planet as a platform to promote his world-view. Challenging him is not really an option; see above.
pel says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:16
Of course you are entitled to your opinion, but I am amazed that people these days cannot stand people having different opinions.
I’d say most people reading pgo comes from an academic background and should be able to take in facts, disinformation and opinions and at least TRY to deal with it somewhat rationally.
It is disheartening to see, in this day and age, people lashing out at other people for having an opinion.
And what strikes me even more sad is that you feel that you have the right to make the statement you just did when in fact it is nothing more but a clever (or childish – couldn’t refuse the rhetorical pun) way to promote your own view on the topic.
If I were you I’d take the opportunity to actually read something from the opposing camp – it might give you some additional insights; it really could be helpful since this is an extremely complex conflict with people debating this much the same way they debate how buying imported beer makes you unpatriotic. There is more to this than having an opinion.
FWIW I really don’t have an opinion on this (although I’ve tried since I learned to question sources), because it is too darn hard to make sense of this. There is just too much propaganda involved.
Stu says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:21
Surely planet gnome is just an aggregation of gnome devs blogs, if you just want gnome news, then go read footnotes instead
Miguel de Icaza says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:21
It is very simple, just follow the instructions here:
http://live.gnome.org/PlanetGnome
And you will have an Icaza-free planet gnome.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:22
@Vincent: Huh? Yes, obviously I vehemently disagree with Miguel here. But I’m trying to restrain myself from turning the Planet into a battle ground. I don’t want Miguel to shut up, I want him to be a little bit more considerate. That’s all.
How that makes me guilty of the same charge I accusing him of is beyond me. I assure you this is to be a one-time post; if I lose this argument I’ll shut up about it and instead bite my nails or something. Again, the idea is to not turn this into a flame war.
Jeff Schroeder says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:23
Damn, I couldn’t agree with you more. Some of the issues I even agree with him on but wish he would continue blogging about whats new and exciting in silverlight or monoland. Some people just don’t give 2 shits about his political views.
Charisma +1
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:30
@pel: I can stand Miguel’s opinion, that’s not the point. The point is that it isn’t fair. If I challenge him I’ll have turned the Planet into a political battleground. Way to go.
@Stu: Next time please read my post before commenting.
@Miguel: I do not want to filter you out completely! I absolutely respect you as a person and as a developer. I’m just asking you to stop using the Planet as free advertisement space for your political world-view.
Vincent Geddes says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:35
@Daniel: well in the sense that you wrote a stealth-political post telling people to stop writing political posts.
I don’t want a flame-war either. I just feel though that if we all self-censor ourselves in every avenue of life, then pluralism and political dissent gets extinguished.
HE says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:36
Man, you’re an idiot.
Ian McKellar says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:36
I read Planet GNOME because I’m interested about the people in GNOME. I love the mixture of technical, personal and political. Having diverse views that can be expressed and discussed with respect is an important part of having a strong community.
The whole “don’t mention the war” attitude here in the US is unhealthy and is I think what has lead to the red-state / blue-state division. If we could all learn to express ourselves and discuss our differences – especially when we’re in contexts where we’ve already established that we respect and like each other – then we’ll all be a lot better off.
Ian
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:43
@Vincent, @Ian: Actually I agree with most of what you say. It’s just that I feel that Miguel has gone far beyond “mentioning the war”. Maybe we could all get together in a pub at next GUADEC and discuss politics there.
chris says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:47
I think Miguel has all the rights talk about whatever he wants in his blog: if you don’t like his opinion please feel free to say why, instead than asking him to stop writing about world politics. Ciao, chris
George Wright says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:52
Hi.
I also love the mixture of personal, political and randomness that p.g.o gives. Long may it continue like that.
If it upsets people that much, couldn’t they just hack up their own opinion-free feed?
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 01:57
chris: My point is that promoting politics to the extent Miguel does it is inconsiderate on this forum. In the end we are like co-workers, and co-workers can and do of course talk about personal matters all the time. But how would you feel if you had a co-worker who would loudly announce his take on politics to everyone each day at lunch? In these situations the only option is often to just grit your teeth and endure it in order to avoid an otherwise inevitable argument. But is the behavior of the co-worker considerate?
anonymous says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:00
It’s not that he should not have his opinion or about wanting him to shut up. It’s about bringing up issues that will almost certainly piss other off people. Issues that are irrelevant to gnome.
We have people from us, eu, israel, iran, china, all over. Every time someone mentions world politics they are sure to step on someones toes. Think about that next time. Do you really want to divide the gnome community rather than just set these things aside and improve the desktop we all love?
daniels says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:00
‘Planet GNOME is a window into the world, work and lives of GNOME hackers and contributors.’
Obviously his politics are a part of his world and life, if not work. I don’t see why him posting on Planet GNOME about an upcoming event turns it into a ‘battleground’ though, any more than me hypothetically posting on Planet freedesktop.org about an upcoming dubstep party would turn it into a dubstep vs. drum ‘n bass battleground.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:00
And please, everyone, stop suggesting the false dichotomy between a strictly technical feed and free-for-all.
daniels says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:01
@anonymous: Read the above comment. If you want news about GNOME, read http://www.gnome.org. If you want news about the lives about the diverse group of people who contribute to GNOME, read the Planet (which applies to community projects in general). If some of these diverse views may offend you, then obviously the Planets are not for you.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:05
@daniels: My point was that it would turn into a battleground if others and I would start to challenge his positions on the Planet. It would be irresponsible.
daniels says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:07
@danielk: Ah yes, but what forces you to challenge Miguel’s opinions on politics? If he was blogging about his favourite music or food, would that automatically cause you to blog about how he’s crap because jazz is better than blues, and chèvre is definitely the superior cheese? I want to know why it’s either no politics, or a rabid dogfight. Even if it’s the latter, is it really the worst-case scenario? Do you forsee GNOME being torn apart by the great Political Blog Wars of 2007?
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:16
@daniels: Could very well happen with musical taste, too, although it’s probably less likely. It depends on the manner and frequency of the posting. See my co-worker-at-lunch example above. I’m just asking for a little more consideration, and I don’t want any fixed rules that this and that is not to be allowed on the Planet.
In that sense, I have worded my original post too strongly. My mistake. Let’s be clear that I don’t want a gag order for any posts about politics. I’m just asking everyone to not stir up the hornet’s nest needlessly. Okay?
Mike says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:36
Thanks for speaking up, Daniel. I find Miguel’s blogs tiring. Its too bad I am drawn to stop listening to him because he occasionally has something interesting to say regarding GNOME and technology. I really wish successful hackers would stop assuming anyone gives a darn about their views about things other than what has given them notoriety: hacking. Miguel (and many others) have this mental block where they see being professional as a threat to their free speech. Get off the soap box and get over yourself, Miguel.
ken says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:38
The kicker is that I can’t even tell what “partisan political view” Miguel is allegedly “promoting” here. He linked to a book about (I’m guessing) America’s support of Israel. I can’t tell if it’s for or against this, and I couldn’t even tell you which party is for/against it. (I didn’t know it was a partisan issue.)
Or did Miguel change an “ABORTION IS TEH MURDER!” post into a link to a book on amazon.com after we started arguing about it? Shame on you, Miguel!
LEAVE MIGUEL ALONE says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:39
LEAVE MIGUEL ALONE! How dare you people talk about BRITNEY, I mean Miguel this way. After he gave us GNOME and Mono and …
Oh crap this is not YouTube.
Hans Petter Jansson says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:41
I order you to be quiet!
/dev/null » Politics, Linux, and Blog Planets says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:42
[...] has some pretty extreme political views, most of which I agree with if I happen to catch them, but they piss off a lot of people because he continually posts his political blogs on Gnome planet. This brings up an interesting [...]
Sean says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:43
Planet GNOME is a blog aggregator. Miguel doesn’t post to Planet GNOME, he merely posts to his _personal_ blog. The PGO admins have deliberately chosen to aggregate his personal blog here, because those administrators want to have a nice place for all of the personal blogs (note, that doesn’t read “development blogs”) in one place for the people who are interested in reading about the people of GNOME.
One of the people of GNOME is Miguel, and part of that person is his political beliefs.
Quite simply, if you don’t want to know about the people of GNOME, don’t read PGO. If you don’t like some of the people on PGO or some of the posts on PGO, just ignore them. You don’t have to confront Miguel about anything. If you feel a need to respond to every opinion on the Internet that contradicts your own, you’re going to be a very, very busy man for a long time to come.
Planet GNOME isn’t meant to be some big community of people who are all trying to play nice with each other. It’s just a blog aggregator that pulls in the personal blogs of people involved in GNOME. That’s it.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:48
@ken: Essentially, the book is alleging that Israel has unduly influence on US foreign politics due to intensive lobbying. I hope that description was neutral enough. I don’t want to discuss the issue on the Planet.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:51
@Sean: I’ll say it again: I do want to read about the people, too. It’s not an either-or thing.
Mike says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 02:58
Daniel is new to planet GNOME. Who does he think he is judging what people can post or not?
Someone needs to remove him from Planet GNOME.
Once again: February 2007
http://danielkitta.org/blog/2007/02/19/hi-there-planet/
Greg K Nicholson says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:02
I’m not sure the coworker-at-lunch analogy is quite accurate—Miguel’s writing this on his personal blog.
A closer analogy might be if he were sitting in his office talking to himself about how Country X is great and how Politician Y slaps granddads for fun; or maybe if he had a poster on his office door saying “Yay for Country X! Politician Y very-very-very-nasty-booooo!”.
danielk says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:05
Oh, I absolutely realize that me berating Miguel was a reckless idea.
@Mike: Well, go ahead and ask jdub if you want me removed.
Jeremy G. says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:12
It seems like once every couple months or so, someone on Planet Gnome feels compelled to complain about the political content of someone else’s blog. To me this seems rather odd, as the open source community is, by its very nature, a very political organism, and it seems only a natural extension that it’s participants would be interested in other forms of politics.
I can very much relate to the frustration at someone who repeatedly brings up a topic of discussion that one finds annoying, or even offensive. But the necessity to be aware of and understand opposing views is very real, especially, but not only, if one desires to contribute to political ideas and developments. Ignoring, or suppressing, offensive world views will only make them more difficult to counter when one must inevitably face them.
My view is, if Miguel were not willing to take an unpopular political stance and stick by it, there is a very real chance that Mono, and now Moonlight, would never have seen the light of day. I personally, am glad they have. If he posts something you really don’t want to read, just skip the post.
I apologize if this comes across as a rant or lecture, but you see, I consider open political discourse to be of the utmost importance. Diplomacy on any level is impossible without it.
Now, if you want to see a truly politicized Open Source developer’s website, check out http://www.stallman.org/
Mike says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:14
@danielk: Me telling jdub to remove you would be the same mistake as telling Miguel to shut up. The point I am trying to make is that you are a little fish in a big pond just like the rest of us. Start acting humble be glad you have not been censored yet. Today is the day that you reached more than 40 post in your blog.
Welcome to Planet GNOME, Welcome to freedom of speech.
Joseph Garvin says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:15
As a reader of PG, I would prefer to read developers arguing about politics than read them whining about arguing about politics. I like political battlegrounds, if the people involved don’t make personal attacks. I warn though that your post has a whiff of BS to it:
-As has been pointed out, this is the argument-without-making-an-argument strategy.
-You label Miguel as partisan. It sounds nasty, but means a whole lot of nothing.
-Miguel’s blog post essentially just says, “I like this book.”
elbaseo says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:26
“Delusional ramblings of a narcistic individual”
Your really do justice to that title.
Live and let others live.
Sebastian says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:28
So … mentioning that you’re currently reading a certain book and liking it a lot, and mentioning that you saw an announcement for a talk by the authors at a university – that is now off limits on Planet Gnome?
And in comparison to Miguel’s usual politically-leaning posts that is “definitely going too far”?
WTF?
iain says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:31
To live life is political.
Everything I do or say is political
Who the fuck do you think you are to impose on people what they do or say?
Free software like free speech, so long as you don’t say things I don’t like
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:38
@Jeremy: As it happens I am very much interested in politics. That’s not the point, though.
@Mike: I know I’m a little fish in a big pond. One of the smallest ones, even.
@Joseph: Sorry if I came over as whining. “partisan” wasn’t meant to sound nasty. I’m partisan, too. But promoting this particular book is definitely a political issue, and we aren’t talking about a singular event either.
Thanks for all your comments, by the way, including the harsh ones. Mike is right, this is indeed like a belated initiation ceremony. So, the majority of commenters seem to think that I should have gone ahead and posted a rebuttal to that book on the Planet? Would that be acceptable — using the Planet as a debating ground for politics?
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:52
@Sebastian: If you aren’t aware of the political context then it’s obviously not something you are going to care about. That doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone else though.
@iain: I think I already explained about ten times by now that the problem for me is to be caught in a catch-22 situation, since I happen to feel just as strongly about the subject as Miguel does, but I don’t consider Planet GNOME to be the appropriate forum for discussing the matter.
Asking people to be more considerate with their posts on a Planet is not censorship. I’m not trying to restrict anyone’s freedom of speech. Heck, I’m not in a position to be able to censor anyone. So please calm down.
Everyone: You win. I’ll shut up already.
Robert Devi says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:53
Funny thing is that the post you pointed to is one of his least political political posts. Read it again. It says that there was a lecture at MIT based on a book he liked so far and he recommended another book. That’s it. He gave no opinion other than that. Unless you actually read the books, you can’t tell which partisan group it supports or criticizes or even if it handles things objectively and even-handedly.
I’m definitely not a Miguel fan (I think he really lost his way after he lost interest in GNOME in favour of Mono), but according to the Planet GNOME Link, “Planet GNOME Planet GNOME is a window into the world, work and lives of GNOME hackers and contributors.”. His posts seem to qualify. Like him or hate him, he is giving you a view into his world. If you look at the other Planet GNOME posts, only half have anything to do with GNOME. Some are about trips. Some about nostalgia. Some are FOSS political (or other political) and some are even about Qt with little rhyme or reason. Anyone reading planets quickly learn to skip over content that’s uninteresting to them.
sb says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 03:56
No, Daniel, why would you want to start a flame fest?
However, if you feel like mentioning a book that you really liked on pgo, go for it! That would be a constructive post, not destructive.
Do you suppose anybody (besides yourself, of course) really takes the stuff on pgo that seriously?
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 04:01
@Robert: I have nothing against Miguel personally, really. In my view promoting this particular book is definitely a political issue. If I hadn’t felt strongly about it I wouldn’t have been so reckless to write this post. In hindsight, it was obviously a mistake.
Jeremy G. says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 04:02
“As it happens I am very much interested in politics.” — Daniel
Well, I assumed that from the fact you found Miguel’s post offensive in the first place. That was just my take on your request for diminished political postings.
I’m all for politics on the Planet, so long as they remain civil. Obviously, if someone starts repeatedly flaming others, some intervention may be required to keep the peace, but there’s nothing wrong with stating an honest opinion.
Politics aside, I’m always glad to see more developers working on my favorite desktop
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 04:04
@sb: You are probably right; it seems I did take this way more seriously than everyone else.
Sri Ramkrishna says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 04:44
Daniel,
I think you’re whole premise that “Miguel is using planet for a political agenda” is probably wrong. Long ago, when that social network Orkut was started I got Miguel to add me as a friend. The sheer number of people who have networked him through orkut or through whatever is just awe inspiring. The number of people who read planet probably pales in comparison to the number of people who have probably added him to their RSS feed or in fact refer to his posts.
Besides we all have opinions, and while there is some self censoring one needs to do if you’re on GNOME planet so far I don’t think he’s saying anything a lot of us haven’t thought about.
Anyways, using your blog to tell someone else to shut up which is also on Planet is poor taste. You could have either mailed him or commented on his blog.
We’ve been having way too much requests for censorship IMHO, a sad state of affairs in a community where the word “Open” shows up quite prominently.
sri
andre klapper’s blog. » Blog Archive » freedom of speech. thanks. says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 05:22
[...] people to blog about everything they would like to blog about, because it is their own blog. tbf, danielk, if you don’t like this, i kindly ask you to please just ignore those postings. nobody forces [...]
Not Important Anymore says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 05:59
A few years ago I took the summer off. I spent a lot of time writing an app for GNOME that is still included in every distro (afaik). One of the reasons I walked away from it and FOSS altogether was having to deal with assholes like Jeff Waugh. The bigger reason was the constant political postings on the Planet. I have conservative views and don’t care to read all that. I don’t have time or need to read the maillists. I have time to review the planet and see what’s happening. Miguel can certainly have his political posts however hateful, misguided and misinformed they may be, but I don’t want to read them. planet.gnome.org is representative of the gnome project. It should be filtered for blog posts that are related to gnome. If people want to aggregate beyond that, they are free to do so, but I’ve been turned off of GNOME and FOSS primarily because of the non-GNOME related noise. If I could read the planet and get updated on GNOME related stuff, I might continue where I left off, but that won’t happen because too many look at it as a free speech issue – it’s not. The politicking reflects poorly on the GNOME project. Miguel is an over-zealous ass that won’t argue his points without personal attacks. If they were valid and not hateful, he could back them up with facts, not biased propaganda and attacks, but that’s not the case. His technical posts and posts about Mono, GNOME, Linux, etc. are great – I love reading them, but the rest… I’ll leave it all, thanks.
Not Important Anymore says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 06:08
@Daniel Elstner: If you challenge Miguel, it will inevitably break down and he will attack you. Read his blog comments and you will see that happen repeatedly. He will spew senseless propaganda and when he no longer can beat that into a person’s head or overcome logical, fact-based arguments, he will resort to personal and character attacks.
@Sri Ramkrishna: Filtering planet.gnome.org and limiting it to GNOME or FOSS-related posts is NOT censorship and if there are that many calls for it, maybe something should be done. Limit by default to that stuff and then, if the reader/subscriber so chooses, allow full posts. Pretty simple. Like I said, if people want to read about politics and personal stuff, make them go the extra mile – that’s where the offensive, hateful stuff comes in.
And Miguel’s views on the Jewish/Palestinian situation are offensive and inflammatory.
Matt says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 06:14
“Lets keep it peaceful,” dude. No need to lash out publicly like you did… Coulda just sent him an email or something.
This is the second personal attack in the past week on p.g.o… after that dig at the vegetarian dude… i sort of think _these sorts_ of inflammatory posts trump political posts in terms of what shouldn’t really be making the p.g.o.
@Not Important Anymore: wow, just wow, i mean you really take the prize for excelling in personal attacks… *sigh*
Not Important Anymore says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 06:21
@Matt: What personal attacks are there on my part? I’ve pointed out fact which can be backed by his history. As I said, read his blog comments – it’s really that simple. If you don’t want to go to the effort, fine, but don’t involve yourself by commenting on that which you are uninformed about.
Jeff Schroeder says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 06:50
@Not Important Anymore: Care to enlighten us on this mysterious app you wrote that is in “every distro” and who you are? Hiding behind the anonymity of the internet when flaming people shows a certain cowardice. If you want to flame someone else, do it so that they can respond correctly.
Sri Ramkrishna says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 07:04
@Not Important Anymore:
I’m afraid then we should agree to disagree. I like reading about whatever goes on people’s lives and what they stand for. Even if I disagree with what they are saying. If you had conservative views and I didn’t I would still respect what you have to say. I might engage you in debate or I might not. But celebrating diversity is really what planet is about. It’s not about just talking about GNOME and technology because frankly we can do that in GNOME news or GNOME Journal. Connecting with people is really what’s important. Why are you reading planet as opposed to GNOME news, footnotes, or GNOME Journal?
sri
Sri Ramkrishna says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 07:07
@Jeff Schroeder
What a low blow. Why don’t you speak to what he’s talking about rather than trying to look at his pedigree? What app he wrote has no bearing on his opinions IMO. He doesn’t need to tell you or anyone what his app is. He related an experience and we should take that as face value.
sri
Not Important Anymore says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 07:07
@Jeff Schroeder: No, I don’t care to. Who I am or what I delivered is not important. You have proven my point – it’s easier for people to try to change the focus of the discussion and personally attack others (your “cowardice” remark) than to argue the points on their merit. Again, look at Miguel’s blog comments – you’ll find dissenting opinions posted and most have been responded to in the manner stated.
Not Important Anymore says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 07:17
@Sri: Thanks for coming to my defense regarding anonymity. However, I do not agree with what you say about respecting what Miguel has to say on political issues. I don’t agree with him and see his statements as offensive and inflammatory. I do respect his right to say it, but that doesn’t mean he should be given a platform as prominent as planet.gnome.org and have his convoluted garbage associated by default with the GNOME project and community. I also respect your right to read whatever you want – that’s why I suggest a change in the planet – have a strictly FOSS-related mode and a give-me-the-whole-mess mode. I think a lot of less vocal people would appreciate that. With regard to the GNOME Journal, you do a nice job with it, but it’s a higher level of abstraction than I like. I see the planet as something in between the mailing lists and the journal. It gives some pretty interesting details that aren’t found elsewhere, including Miguel’s technical/FOSS-related posts.
oomu says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 08:31
time to tear you appart I presume…
gnome planet is not about gnome but about people making gnome.
you already debated of that EVERY YEAR. and every year people accepted than you (the ones in planet gnome) have right to write anything you want and it was not only about gnome.
and I like some opinion of De Caza and dislike others. oh, and there are nothing bad in speaking about an israel lobby. Lobby is not only bad, and lobbies are not necessarely important.
some people said :
“We have people from us, eu, israel, iran, china, all over. Every time someone mentions world politics they are sure to step on someones toes. Think about that next time. Do you really want to divide the gnome community rather than just set these things aside and improve the desktop we all love?”
NO.
you have freedom to speak, you have to accept, to assume , to defend , to live with it !
and every year, gnomes blogguers told and told again, and AGain and AGAIN than gnome planet WAS NOT about gnome news but about the lives of GNOME DEveloppers
NOT a gnome advertisements web site, NOT Gnome News.
I read you, gnome developpers, from years, and you have that debate EVERY YEAR, and never a thing changed. you have to accept people
even De Caza.
___‘Planet GNOME is a window into the world, work and lives of GNOME hackers and contributors.’____
that window is also political. De Caza is not the first and the last of gnome developpers with strong political believings (I read some stronger opinion on pgo… israel seems to annoy you, but it’s nothing. I read some incendiary stuff about Irak years ago, or Russia, and of course the typical “commercial enterprise are the devil” stuff…
ho yes, I remember I was shocked, one year ago, to read some blatant christian stuff every week on pgo, the church, the bible and whatever christiain believings. some people was angry, but PGO IS NOT ABOUT GNOME NEWS BUT LIVES and some lives are not my live ! )
___‘Planet GNOME is a window into the world, work and lives of GNOME hackers and contributors.’____
Dekkard says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 08:33
Wow, I think oGalaxyo is back guys. This could be fun.
Chris Cunningham says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 08:57
@Sri:
Because the content is standard boilerplate wingnut Internet trolling, and as such should be utterly ignored in the lack of compelling evidence that there’s some truth to it.
@oomu:
Not to mention the vegetarians, who had non-veggies defending them all the way the other day.
– Chris
zog zog says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:47
I don’t see how you could say Miguel is “using” planet gnome to express his political views. At best, he’s using planet suse too, and every other blog aggregation system that aggregates his blog. Miguel is not “using” planet gnome, rather, planet gnome aggregates all his blog posts indiscriminatingly. No one is going to make a new blog, separated from the one syndicated at planet gnome, just to prevent your eyes from reading something you don’t like.
We need smarter blog aggregation systems, with subject tag metadata so whiners like you can make a “tag ignore list” like “ignore the tag “politics” ” and be done with it. The web needs to be more metadata awareness.
zog zog says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:48
Needs to have more, i wanted to say. *sic*
Adhemar says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:01
Daniel,
You state that the distinction between a strictly technical feed and free-for-all aggregator is a false dichotomy. You also stated that you want to know about the personal lifes of the GNOME developers. But for some reason, mentioning a book with a political viewpoint is not done in your opinion.
I don’t get it. I’ve read parts of the book. It’s not anti-Israel, it just observes that the power of the Israel-lobby in American politics is (unduly) huge, and tries to make an analysis of that.
If you want to challenge Miguel’s opinions in a blog post (which would be aggregated), by all means: be my guest.
Liking a book, expressing a political opinion, I just don’t get why this is “definitely too far” on a personal blog that is aggregated. Even the very idea of free software is a controversial political idea – especially if you go all the way on the FSF/Stallman ideology. Is that idea unsuitable for inclusion in Planet Gnome as well?
If you impose limits so strict that even Miguel’s non-inflammatory post falls outside of the limits, which would restrict the 1à2 % of the blog posts you least agree with, what’s to stop others to remove the 1à2% of the blog posts they least agree with (including this one of yours)?
If we go on the road of “if it is controversial to a few people, it needs to go”, the Planet will get reduced to the strictly technical feed it never was intended to be. The distinction between a strictly technical feed and free-for-all aggregator is not such a false dichotomy as you claim it to be.
On Planet Ubuntu, Melissa Draper once objected a blog post about a not-very-explicit advertisement which showed the white iPod earphones in an iconic way, just because the advertisement was about a (not depicted) adult toy.
Different people would define unsuitability in radical different ways
nona says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 13:48
I agree with Adhemar here – claiming that only _some_ topics should be kept off Planet Gnome is almost the same as reducing Planet Gnome to a purely technical feed. Simply because there’s no consensus on what should be avoided. Some might even be offended that anything is filtered at all.
Jesse says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 15:58
Posting about an academic talk and a book is going “too far”?? Give me a break!
There is quite an irony here for people who have actually read the Mearsheimer and Walt paper, which is that posts like Daniel Elstner’s tend to lend support to the main thesis. Way to do your part for the Israel Lobby!
Jesse says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 16:06
I should say that I don’t believe for a second that you, Daniel, are part of the “Israel Lobby”. That was a joke. But, I think it’s a little too easy to suggest that someone stop using their voice — all in the name of peace, civility, objectivity — when the issue turns toward Israel/Palestine. That is very troublesome.
SW says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 16:41
I suppose he has to write something to keep his name in the minds of the GNOME community… we’d forget he existed otherwise!
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 16:57
@Jesse: Where have I been uncivil? And where did I lose my objectivity? I didn’t touch the matter at all, how would you know whether my position on this issue is based on objective grounds or not?
@SW: Actually, no, I was just angry.
Everyone, let’s drop this, please. I was wrong in thinking heated political discussion is inappropriate for Planet GNOME. Next time something heavy-hitting like this happens I’ll post a rebuttal instead.
Mark Gordon says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 21:31
Let me explain how Mearsheimer and Walt make their money:
Step 1) Blame all the world’s problems on the Jews.
Step 2) Let the Jews, philosemites, etc. complain loudly, thereby generating lots of free publicity. This is where you come in. Articles and book reviews in the mainstream press also help with this. All this does is make the authors look more credible. “Look! They’re trying to silence us, just like we describe in the book!”
Step 3) Use the publicity to sell lots of books to people like Miguel who are looking for something to read while they wait for Chomsky to finish his next book. Libraries also feel compelled to purchase copies of such a visible and controversial work.
Step 4) Profit!
I’m not at all convinced that the authors sincerely believe what they have written, but at the very least, they’ve figured out how to make a lot of money writing such things. “The Israel Lobby” is ranked #83 in books at Amazon. An earlier book by Mearsheimer, “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics”, is ranked #69,119. They’ve obviously found a more lucrative business model in this book. Along similar lines, Chomsky has probably made a lot more money selling books on politics than he ever made selling books on linguistics.
YHBT. YHL. HAND.
Some may argue that it’s unwise in all cases to ignore antisemitism, but in this case, I’m afraid the attention does make things worse. If things get too ugly here, I can make aliyah.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 21:53
Thanks for your encouraging words, Mark. You’re right that speaking up can be counter-productive — as I have just amply demonstrated myself. I should have thought this through beforehand. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.
b0b says:
October 3rd, 2007 at 00:44
I don’t care about
- political views
- personal photos
- cats, pets etc
- food
- mariages
- children
- people invoking the lazyweb, the intarwebs, the fukingweb for whatever purpose
Bloggers definively have way too much time to waste, thinking their useless post is the most important thing ever while 99.9999999999% of people don’t fuking care.
Chris says:
October 3rd, 2007 at 03:58
1. Planet Gnome is a feed aggregator. Planet Gnome will pick up every post from every gnome blogger. If you don’t like it, than you probably don’t want to read the Web site. Miguel is too far left for my tastes, but I do like to read his opinions.
2. Why can’t people discuss the Israel/Palestine situation outside of saying Israel = Good/Palestine = Bad? Any opinion outside of that seems to inflame people. Why is it not an issue that can be discussed?
Daniel Elstner says:
October 3rd, 2007 at 16:56
@Chris: Regarding your second point: The way this just went shows pretty clearly that your assertion is simply not true. Besides, no-one mentioned Palestine.
Hahaha says:
October 4th, 2007 at 03:02
Ironically, the book Miguel was blogging about documents events that are exactly what YOU do but on a much larger scale: Getting people to shut up if they even remotely try to criticize the POLITICS of the state of Israel, and trying in to every possible way to link frame their criticism as racism, anti-Judaism (less accurately, anti-Semitism), misinformation or just plain hatred.
Well keep your delusions to yourself.
Daniel Elstner says:
October 4th, 2007 at 04:23
1. You are about the third person to note an irony, brainy.
2. The politics of Israel are not the issue here.
3. Feeling persecuted, eh? Seeing things?
4. Keep your delusional conspiracy theory to yourself.