[rickmb]

Not only is Shuttleworth's reference to McCarthyism extremely distasteful (and something he should be apologizing for), the bitter irony is that he's doing exactly what he accuses the free software fundamentalists of, to quote the man himself: "ranting and being a dick".

Throwing a near-Godwin into the debate is not exactly being mature an constructive.

Especially since he should be fully aware that it may be in the short term interest of FLOSS to be pragmatic, we need voices like RMS and the FSF to remain alert for the long term consequences, and dismissing such a voice as dangerous political extremists hurts everyone.

[sbuk]

To be perfectly honest none of the parties come out of this with any dignity. I love using F/LOSS. I love the learning that comes with it. I contribute where I can, mainly financially and with help. But...

The F/LOSS community's attitude in general stinks and this whole sorry affair highlights why I believe many are put off by F/LOSS. Its proponents are generally condescending, arrogant, self righteous, sanctimonious, rude, judgemental and overly hostile. There are a few diamonds in the rough, anecdotally the ones I have encountered work for Canonical. This infighting and idealism is doing the F/LOSS community far more harm than Microsoft ever did. To counter with the predictable howls of derision or claims of ad hominem and strawmen fallacies is to ignore a serious issue that the community has, itself.