Why do GNOME people always play the man?

By Sam Varghese
Monday, 21 July 2008 20:52

Opinion and Analysis

Software engineers are often touted as people whose logic is excellent. That's why I'm amazed when some of these so-called virtuosos always indulge in personal attacks when they spot something with which they disagree.
I've grown quite used to people from the GNOME Foundation indulging in this kind of attack. I've lost count of the number of times the foundation's media spokesman Jeff Waugh has launched personal attacks on me; GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza followed suit a few months back.

The latest to join this illustrious queue is one Dave Neary who, according to his own description, is a member of the GNOME foundation board, has seven years professional software engineering experience and is heavily involved with the project's marketing work. That's probably a clue to his reaction to something I wrote.

Now, I'm not up in arms because Neary disagreed with something I wrote. I'm merely curious as to why so-called educated individuals have to always resort to name-calling in order to try and refute what they consider a "wrong" conclusion.

A few days back I wrote a piece quoting from an interview given by the chief of Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, in which I detected some pro-KDE statements.

Neary did not agree - and he is more than welcome to do so. What was pathetic was his use of personal insults to try and bolster his argument: "I hate to give attention to Sam Varghese, but he is, after all, my favourite free software Shock Jock - always looking for conflict, or the controversial angle on the most innocuous statement."

In other words, a man's arguments are incorrect because he is not normal like me. To me, a man who starts off using personal insults in a bid to shoot down an argument is on a very weak wicket - but then I am not a software engineer.