[smsm42]

TBH, I has been participating in open source since the 1990s, and I never seen the actual stigma like you describe. Yes, OSS projects were laughed at, dismissed as hobbyist and unserious, insinuated to be low quality and "worth exactly how much you pay for it" - all that happened all the time. But implying OSS people are mentally ill... maybe somebody did it, but I've never seen it. And I did work with people from Microsoft, Oracle, etc. - albeit from the parts that were more OSS-friendly. But I think if it was indeed that widespread I'd hear about it. RMS certainly had a reputation to be an unusual character - even in OSS circles - but I didn't see it wielded as a weapon agains OSS - at least not until the cancel culture started.

And yes, there were plenty of assholes in OSS (as there were outside) and it was mostly young people, many of whom confused being rude with being honest and direct, but I don't think it had anything to do with either Microsoft or mental illness. It had to do with being young and unexperienced and trying to form a new culture online where none existed before.

[r3trohack3r]

Here is a nice document about their approach to “evangelism”

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf

And some nice documentation on patent trolling to make the commons financially unviable, this destroyed lives: http://techrights.org/2007/10/22/lasuit-evolution-linux/

And examples of when they paid folks to go spread a bunch of misinformation about the commons: http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/AstroTurfing

[smsm42]

I know there was a concerted FUD effort and much dirty playing, including all the stuff you are pointing out. What I specifically didn't see is usage of mental illness as a weapon against OSS.

[r3trohack3r]

It’s part of their documented strategy in the evangelism document. Section 11: Mopping Up.

I’ll update my comment to read “mental deficiency” instead of mental illness for accuracy. I overstated.

(Update: I’ve lost my edit button on the original post)

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