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I was reading through the article's comments and saw this thread of discussion. Well, it's hard to call it a thread of discussion because John apparently put an end to it right away. The first comment in that thread is totally right though. It is systemd and Gnome 3 that are causing so many of these problems with Linux today.

perhaps he shuts them down because he specifically said that installing systemd solved his problem but he doesn't know why.
Yet people with logic problems claim systemd is the problem, despite the fact that it wasn't installed on the systems experiencing the problem.

I was reading through the article's comments and saw this thread of discussion. Well, it's hard to call it a thread of discussion because John apparently put an end to it right away.

Of course he shut it down, it was pure trolling.

Goerzen writes about a problem he's having with Gnome, Xfce and KDE on a non-systemd system, which is fixed by moving to systemd, and some moron jumps up to claim the problem is Gnome and systemd.

I was reading through the article's comments and saw this thread of discussion. Well, it's hard to call it a thread of discussion because John apparently put an end to it right away. The first comment in that thread is totally right though. It is systemd and Gnome 3 that are causing so many of these problems with Linux today. I don't use Debian, but I do use another distro that switched to systemd, and it is in fact the problem here. My workstation doesn't work anywhere as well as it did a couple of years ago, before systemd got installed. So when somebody blames systemd for these kinds of problems, that person is totally correct. I don't get why John would censor the discussion like that. I also don't get why he'd label somebody who points out the real problem as being a 'troll'. John needs to admit that the real problem here is not the people who are against systemd. These people are actually the ones who are right, and who have the solution to John's problems! The comment I linked to says 'Systemd needs to be removed from Debian immediately.', and that's totally right. But I think we need to expand it to 'Systemd needs to be removed from all Linux distros immediately.' If we want Linux to be usable again, systemd does need to go. It's just as simple as that. Censoring any and all discussion of the real problem here, systemd, sure isn't going to get these problems resolved any quicker!

This guy has some interesting blog posts about introducing the shell and linux to his kids: http://changelog.complete.org/archives/category/technology/children-computing

This article should be inspirational:

http://changelog.complete.org/archives/7562-i-introduced-my-5-year-old-and-2-year-old-to-startx-and-xmonad-theyre-delighted

The thing is kids can get stuff pretty quick if you don't put the fear of knowledge in them.

If you were a good geek instead of a wayward one maybe you'd not give your children admin privileges and then they wouldn't install things they shouldn't.

Sure being "smart" helps you from infection, not sure about admin rights sure it helps but not much.. The should have admin rights though, children are supposed to click everywhere and learn stuff and to do that they need to be able to break stuff. Sadly that will mean getting a slow Windows installation, or making the computer unbootable in Linux.

John Goerzen: has some great posts about 3 year old children and Linux, my favourites are:

• Jacob has a new computer — and a favorite shell
• XMPP for Children

If you were a good geek instead of a wayward one maybe you'd not give your children admin privileges and then they wouldn't install things they shouldn't.

Sure being "smart" helps you from infection, not sure about admin rights sure it helps but not much.. The should have admin rights though, children are supposed to click everywhere and learn stuff and to do that they need to be able to break stuff. Sadly that will mean getting a slow Windows installation, or making the computer unbootable in Linux.

John Goerzen: has some great posts about 3 year old children and Linux, my favourites are:

• Jacob has a new computer — and a favorite shell
• XMPP for Children

If you were a good geek instead of a wayward one maybe you'd not give your children admin privileges and then they wouldn't install things they shouldn't.

Sure being "smart" helps you from infection, not sure about admin rights sure it helps but not much.. The should have admin rights though, children are supposed to click everywhere and learn stuff and to do that they need to be able to break stuff. Sadly that will mean getting a slow Windows installation, or making the computer unbootable in Linux.

John Goerzen: has some great posts about 3 year old children and Linux, my favourites are:

• Jacob has a new computer — and a favorite shell
• XMPP for Children

I remember the days as a child playing with my electronics project kit from RadioShack. It seemed that it could do everything - burglar alarms, sirens, even simple radios. Even let you accidentally wire things up in a short and cause some batteries to burst...

It's been interesting to watch RadioShack. They morphed from the good place to get connectors, resistors, and fun things into a run of the mill phone and TV shop. Or did they?

Wired ran an interesting article called The Lost Tribes of RadioShack talking about a potential revival of the maker hobbies. I blogged about it too (Once, We Were Makers). There is one local franchise RadioShack that has a huge amateur section in the back, complete with cable by the foot, antennas, hams on staff, amazing service, etc.

What I'm trying to say is: You're exactly right. I used to love to tinker. I thought I didn't anymore, outside of programming. I learned last year, when I got my ham radio license, that I was wrong. Amateur radio is just Open Source in hardware.

There is no accomplishment in being in Kansas and talking to someone in Japan via the Internet or telephone. I'm sure I do this without even realizing it frequently. How about doing the same using only a $7 antenna and no third-party infrastructure at all? No satellites, no buried cables, no telephone or cable companies -- just my rig and the one in Japan?

I realize it's not at all unique to be able to do this among the amateur radio crowd, but it still gives me a thrill. I love it.

I've seen a lot of comments here ask "why bother, given the Internet?" That attitude kept me away from ham radio for years, too. I wrote up a bit about what changed my mind:

http://wiki.complete.org/WhyAmateurRadio

And here's a page with some information on how to get started:

http://wiki.complete.org/GettingStartedWithAmateurRadio

I also recommend some books and exam practice sites on that page.

Incidentally, another aspect of amateur radio is packet radio - AX.25, which is a networking protocol similar to, but distinct from, the TCP/IP stack. Guess which OS has the best support built into the kernel? I've had a lot of fun with packet, both in its traditional and APRS (positioning beacons) forms.

http://wiki.complete.org/PacketRadio

I've seen a lot of comments here ask "why bother, given the Internet?" That attitude kept me away from ham radio for years, too. I wrote up a bit about what changed my mind:

http://wiki.complete.org/WhyAmateurRadio

And here's a page with some information on how to get started:

http://wiki.complete.org/GettingStartedWithAmateurRadio

I also recommend some books and exam practice sites on that page.

Incidentally, another aspect of amateur radio is packet radio - AX.25, which is a networking protocol similar to, but distinct from, the TCP/IP stack. Guess which OS has the best support built into the kernel? I've had a lot of fun with packet, both in its traditional and APRS (positioning beacons) forms.

http://wiki.complete.org/PacketRadio

I've seen a lot of comments here ask "why bother, given the Internet?" That attitude kept me away from ham radio for years, too. I wrote up a bit about what changed my mind:

http://wiki.complete.org/WhyAmateurRadio

And here's a page with some information on how to get started:

http://wiki.complete.org/GettingStartedWithAmateurRadio

I also recommend some books and exam practice sites on that page.

Incidentally, another aspect of amateur radio is packet radio - AX.25, which is a networking protocol similar to, but distinct from, the TCP/IP stack. Guess which OS has the best support built into the kernel? I've had a lot of fun with packet, both in its traditional and APRS (positioning beacons) forms.

http://wiki.complete.org/PacketRadio

"Debugging code is admitting defeat."

Your apology forthwith, please

The point is that the bank initiated the process, subsequently both the bank and Dynadot went to the court with an agreement to shut down wikileaks.org (if the court agreed). The court agreed and issued an order to do just that.

On my desktop, I have it syncing with IMAP since my mail app is open pretty much all the time anyway - but you are 100% right, it is a bit slow. On my laptop I just use the web interface rather than deal with the transfer time.

I don't know why, either. If you multi-thread the IMAP stuff you can sync a huge (previously synced) folder in less than 5 seconds over DSL. Contrast that to a single-threaded app like Apple Mail which takes 10 minutes! Ugh. OfflineIMAP is a multithreaded app and does the sync really, really fast - but then you are left running it as a cron job or something. Too much of a hassle, and not really suitable for the laptop. Plus it can't create new IMAP folders.

When did the "Linux community" get so vitriolic and spiteful?

There is no vitriol in the parent's post. The term 'enemy' is only as emotionally charged as the listener wishes it to be. As it's easier to hate an 'enemy' than to understand and accept an opposing point of view, this is probably not the best choice of words in a constructive dialogue.

This isn't some ideological war that is being fought, and shame on you for trying to make it into one.

The parent is simply making an observation. Free Software is an ideology just as capitalism is an ideology. While not mutually exclusive (hence efforts being made to monetize Free Software both on the part of "Open Source" startups and established commercial vendors), these two ideologies do conflict in several areas.

Microsoft is [an] enemy?

<executivesummary>

While an organization as large and diverse as Microsoft will never be entirely focused on activities that impede or overtly threaten the F/OSS community, it has interests that are not and may never be compatible with those of the Free Software community. For that reason, MSFT is directly and indirectly engaged in activities that hurt and threaten the F/OSS community, not out of malice or even by choice, but in simply fulfilling obligations to its shareholders. It's just business :).

</executivesummary>

• isync - Synchronize a local maildir with a remote IMAP4 mailbox
• mailsync - Synchronize IMAP mailboxes
• offlineimap - IMAP/Maildir synchronization and reader support

OfflineIMAP would fix most synchronization problems. Dovecot is a fast IMAP server and Maildrop coupled with your favourite smap filter could take care of the server part. Couple that with a good mail client (mutt) and a way to synchronize contacts. mutt can be customized with own keybindings, so that way one could add support for training the mail filter. I keep my home directory in a darcs repository to keep it in sync between machines. Other people use Subversion.

Yeah, right. :)

Seemed like a good question to me, so I started googling to see why FreeCiv hadn't done it.
Maybe the answer to this depends on the movement model.
FreeCiv Dev List discussion from years ago.

Gopher lives!

We're not unaffected by this.

Periodically, there will be discussion on the Freeciv mailing lists as to whether Tibet and Taiwan should be included in the list of nations. Chinese developers disagree with this, and it never happens. See one such discussion here.

Heh, maybe we should remove China from the game. :)

Not that Slashdot chose to report it.

Here's an article I wrote on the subject:

According to the open source movement [this article is concerned with open source, not free software (although free software certainly shares some of the funding problems), to clear up any ambiguity], considering a piece of software someone has written, one should not use it unless one has the source code. The reasoning is that if one
has a problem with it, one cannot resolve the issue without outside help. As far as I can see, although this is certainly a distinct advantage for say Google, who with a staff
of highly trained engineers could easily tweak the Linux or BSD kernel to suit their requirements, its advantages in ensuring quality and reliability are far from assured. For
example, in propounding the open source solution in John Goerzen's paper on the ethics of free [open source] software he says that the
famous case of the USS Yorktown, that the 'problem behind all this is proprietary software'.

This claim is one that Mr. Goerzen fails to adequately establish. His arguments can be summarized as follows:

• lack of peer review means that closed source software is intrinsically untrustworthy
  
• the 'fact' that closed source means knowledge is not shared, something he says is unethical
  

By contrast he argues that from utilitarian grounds open source is better insofar as it tends to maximize the sum total of happiness, and, most specifically that 'free software is the most beneficial for the greatest number of people.'

To consider his first argument, namely that the absence of peer review makes closed source software untrustworthy, I would argue that in fact peer review is *more* rather than less
common with closed source software. To take an example, Microsoft operating systems typically spend upwards of a year in external testing, whereas open source software tends to follow Eric Raymonds's famous
Bazaar principle, where software is released little and often. The difference between the two can easily be seen. Anyone who used an open source OS and GUI environment, simply by
clicking through each option. In my experience there would also be a considerable number of software crashes.

There are a number of reasons for this as I see it:

• lack of money
  

  Since the open source movement is associated with software that is without price, there is little money to fund fulltime programmers, marketing to attract new people to the project,
  or commercial testing.
  

• lack of direction (i.e. the ability to be able to say: 'Right, you get that bit done or you're fired')
  

'We need x programmers, x video guys, and x voiceover artists.'

They will then hire those staff and the product will be produced. By contrast, the free equivalent works on a haphazard basis whereby that which is produced is determined by those people who happen to volunteer for the project.

Thus Freeciv is without any sound effects, video, etc., and also has inferior graphics, all of which detract from one's enjoyment of the game (not to mention that it exhibits one of the major problems with open source, namely lack of innovation). Indeed it is my contention that open source is a fundamentally incorrect model for software aimed at the consumer.

Characteristics of the consumer:

• 
  little or no programming knowledge (and therefore the so-called advantage of having the source code is no such thing)
  
• 
  low tolerance of technology for its own sake
  
• 
  little understanding of computers
  

For them, open source software holds no benefits compared to the leading commercial equivalents from Microsft and Apple. As such, the consumer Linux distributions I believe are
doomed. The problems are:

• insufficient funding. Open source businesses typically depend on business models that stand no chance of ever making any money. Because of the mistaken believe that making money
  out of software is somehow immoral (a bizarre belief, considering that everyone must make money to survive), they rely on 'donations', on selling services, and on limited and voluntary sales
  of products they could download for free. Although to a certain extent the market has wised up to this, as seen by the fact that Corel's Linux division was sold for a miserly £5million,
  I still believe that businesses like thekompany.com, and Nautilus, which rely on selling vague services or on giving the core product and charging for addons, it still persists.
  

  
  It is unfortunate for open source that this socialist tendency persists so much - Microsoft would not be able to afford produce the world's best word processor if they had given
  Word away and just charged for the thesaurus.
  

  
  Still further, the belief that making money out of software is somehow damaging is fundamentally misconceived. While closed source software has grown up, so to has the economy -
  high software spending is a *good* thing, not bad.
  

  
  The massive growth in the economy has been fueled by commercial companies making money, whereas open source ultimately aims at making all software 'free', which would undoubtedly be harmful.
  

  
  
• inadequate product - whereas commercial companies such as Microsoft have armies of people employed in usability testing, the fact, as explained above, that open source can *never* match
  the resources of closed source means that the product will never be as advanced or as easy to use as the paid-for alternative [note that there are certain circumstances where open source can compete].
  

  
  The common reply to this is that absence of resources is not an impediment, since open source depends on volunteers, but this makes the fundamental assumption that there are enough
  people who would rather make software for free than make money making commercial software.
  

Thus:

• the pool of volunteers or the quantity of their free time will never be large enough to build a 'complete' open source software ensemble
  
• as explained above, commercial companies producing open source are not typically viable, and so do not have anything like the resources of the commercial sector with which to compete.
  
• the lack of money and commercial incentive means that open source produces very little innovation, and so is always playing catchup
  

This is a very flimsy argument, and I would in fact argue the reverse - at present colleges and learning schemes are heavily funded by profit-making businesses, but if open source succeeded
these businesses would be redundant, which would in fact cause even greater damage to learning since this funding would stop.

Furthermore, the net result of this would be that people would be discourage from software production as a career, since it would no longer represent a profitable career path, and so they
would probably pursue a career as a doctor or a lawyer. This would be a great loss to the nation, since the quality of software would decline, as highly intelligent students
would go elsewhere.

In conclusion, I'm not arguing necessarily that open source is always necessarily inappropriate, but rather that for consumer software it certainly is.

In more specific cases, it might present a useful solution - for example, for high-end military applications or servers maintained by experts there are certainly advantages to
an open system; however, these cases are relatively restricted - since I see little commercial potential in free software, these have to return to the roots of open source - to
the limited number of highly dedicated hackers producing a small range of software (such as Unix kernels). It is here that there can be union between the two opposites - a movement
that believes in free software, and those who make money out of it. Thus OSX represents a good example of the sort of project open source is ideally suited for - a defined Unix kernel
is the ideal project for open source, in that it requires relatively few resources other than programmer time.

Not that Slashdot chose to report it.

Here's an article I wrote on the subject:

According to the open source movement [this article is concerned with open source, not free software (although free software certainly shares some of the funding problems), to clear up any ambiguity], considering a piece of software someone has written, one should not use it unless one has the source code. The reasoning is that if one
has a problem with it, one cannot resolve the issue without outside help. As far as I can see, although this is certainly a distinct advantage for say Google, who with a staff
of highly trained engineers could easily tweak the Linux or BSD kernel to suit their requirements, its advantages in ensuring quality and reliability are far from assured. For
example, in propounding the open source solution in John Goerzen's paper on the ethics of free [open source] software he says that the
famous case of the USS Yorktown, that the 'problem behind all this is proprietary software'.

This claim is one that Mr. Goerzen fails to adequately establish. His arguments can be summarized as follows:

• lack of peer review means that closed source software is intrinsically untrustworthy
  
• the 'fact' that closed source means knowledge is not shared, something he says is unethical
  

By contrast he argues that from utilitarian grounds open source is better insofar as it tends to maximize the sum total of happiness, and, most specifically that 'free software is the most beneficial for the greatest number of people.'

To consider his first argument, namely that the absence of peer review makes closed source software untrustworthy, I would argue that in fact peer review is *more* rather than less
common with closed source software. To take an example, Microsoft operating systems typically spend upwards of a year in external testing, whereas open source software tends to follow Eric Raymonds's famous
Bazaar principle, where software is released little and often. The difference between the two can easily be seen. Anyone who used an open source OS and GUI environment, simply by
clicking through each option. In my experience there would also be a considerable number of software crashes.

There are a number of reasons for this as I see it:

• lack of money
  

  Since the open source movement is associated with software that is without price, there is little money to fund fulltime programmers, marketing to attract new people to the project,
  or commercial testing.
  

• lack of direction (i.e. the ability to be able to say: 'Right, you get that bit done or you're fired')
  

'We need x programmers, x video guys, and x voiceover artists.'

They will then hire those staff and the product will be produced. By contrast, the free equivalent works on a haphazard basis whereby that which is produced is determined by those people who happen to volunteer for the project.

Thus Freeciv is without any sound effects, video, etc., and also has inferior graphics, all of which detract from one's enjoyment of the game (not to mention that it exhibits one of the major problems with open source, namely lack of innovation). Indeed it is my contention that open source is a fundamentally incorrect model for software aimed at the consumer.

Characteristics of the consumer:

• 
  little or no programming knowledge (and therefore the so-called advantage of having the source code is no such thing)
  
• 
  low tolerance of technology for its own sake
  
• 
  little understanding of computers
  

For them, open source software holds no benefits compared to the leading commercial equivalents from Microsft and Apple. As such, the consumer Linux distributions I believe are
doomed. The problems are:

• insufficient funding. Open source businesses typically depend on business models that stand no chance of ever making any money. Because of the mistaken believe that making money
  out of software is somehow immoral (a bizarre belief, considering that everyone must make money to survive), they rely on 'donations', on selling services, and on limited and voluntary sales
  of products they could download for free. Although to a certain extent the market has wised up to this, as seen by the fact that Corel's Linux division was sold for a miserly £5million,
  I still believe that businesses like thekompany.com, and Nautilus, which rely on selling vague services or on giving the core product and charging for addons, it still persists.
  

  
  It is unfortunate for open source that this socialist tendency persists so much - Microsoft would not be able to afford produce the world's best word processor if they had given
  Word away and just charged for the thesaurus.
  

  
  Still further, the belief that making money out of software is somehow damaging is fundamentally misconceived. While closed source software has grown up, so to has the economy -
  high software spending is a *good* thing, not bad.
  

  
  The massive growth in the economy has been fueled by commercial companies making money, whereas open source ultimately aims at making all software 'free', which would undoubtedly be harmful.
  

  
  
• inadequate product - whereas commercial companies such as Microsoft have armies of people employed in usability testing, the fact, as explained above, that open source can *never* match
  the resources of closed source means that the product will never be as advanced or as easy to use as the paid-for alternative [note that there are certain circumstances where open source can compete].
  

  
  The common reply to this is that absence of resources is not an impediment, since open source depends on volunteers, but this makes the fundamental assumption that there are enough
  people who would rather make software for free than make money making commercial software.
  

Thus:

• the pool of volunteers or the quantity of their free time will never be large enough to build a 'complete' open source software ensemble
  
• as explained above, commercial companies producing open source are not typically viable, and so do not have anything like the resources of the commercial sector with which to compete.
  
• the lack of money and commercial incentive means that open source produces very little innovation, and so is always playing catchup
  

This is a very flimsy argument, and I would in fact argue the reverse - at present colleges and learning schemes are heavily funded by profit-making businesses, but if open source succeeded
these businesses would be redundant, which would in fact cause even greater damage to learning since this funding would stop.

Furthermore, the net result of this would be that people would be discourage from software production as a career, since it would no longer represent a profitable career path, and so they
would probably pursue a career as a doctor or a lawyer. This would be a great loss to the nation, since the quality of software would decline, as highly intelligent students
would go elsewhere.

In conclusion, I'm not arguing necessarily that open source is always necessarily inappropriate, but rather that for consumer software it certainly is.

In more specific cases, it might present a useful solution - for example, for high-end military applications or servers maintained by experts there are certainly advantages to
an open system; however, these cases are relatively restricted - since I see little commercial potential in free software, these have to return to the roots of open source - to
the limited number of highly dedicated hackers producing a small range of software (such as Unix kernels). It is here that there can be union between the two opposites - a movement
that believes in free software, and those who make money out of it. Thus OSX represents a good example of the sort of project open source is ideally suited for - a defined Unix kernel
is the ideal project for open source, in that it requires relatively few resources other than programmer time.

From: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
Subject: IDG's relationship to me and others
To: IDrewelow@idgbooks.com
Date: 07 May 2000 15:24:29 -0500

[ An open letter. Anyone has permission to redistribute this letter, verbatim, for no fee. ]

Dear Isabelle:

I am an author that has just completed my first book with IDG, the Linux Programming Bible. I had been very pleased with the way IDG handled the book, process, and legal matters -- until now.

It came to my attention today that you personally, and IDG in general, are sending threatening letters to many members of the Free Software community (of which I am a part) that happen to use the phrase "for dummies" in casual conversation, e-mail, or the title of a webpage.

I must vehemently object to this harassment of my colleagues. These things pose zero risk and no possibility of confusion with your series. If they were printed and sold in bookstores with a yellow cover, I'd easily support your claim.

I feel that this attempt at censoring people that are just trying to do good in the world is despicable and feel that I will have to re-evaluate my future plans to write additional titles with a company that actively is trying to crush members of the Linux community unfortunate enough to use a common English phrase in the course of their daily communications or online documentation.

The specific cases to which I refer include the "Real Beginner's Guide to CVS" guide, which happened to mention farther down that it is "affectionately known as 'CVS for dummies'". I additionally noticed a post on the Slashdot.Org online forum today where you are apparently going after a non-profit group in Australia for using the phrase on a website.

I am left to wonder if I myself may be the target of your pressures by unwittingly using a phrase such as "for dummies" on my own website, in my own e-mail communications, or even on the phone.

I would ask at this time that you ceasee this unwarranted harassment of the good people on the Internet and instead focus on the people that are actually trying to harm you, if any.

I additionally consider it only proper to inform you that I have created a webpage containing the words "for dummies" at http://www.complete.org/news/957731761/index_html

Sincerely,

John Goerzen
jgoerzen@complete.org

References:

• http://www.octapod.org.au/dummies/
  One site you succeeded in bullying.
• http://slashdot.org/articles/00 /05/07/1019231.shtml
  Today's Slashdot story.
• http://slashdot.org/articles/ 99/10/28/1636205_F.shtml
  An earlier Slashdot story detailing your attempts to censor e-mail.
• 15 USC 1125(c)(4) explicitly stating that your representation of having an actionable claim are untrue.
• http://www.users.one.se/~feltby/idgb_s mells/
  Which details other cases of your oppression.
• http://www.kvaleberg.com/html.html
  Another person you succeeded in censoring.

From: John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>
Subject: IDG's relationship to me and others
To: IDrewelow@idgbooks.com
Date: 07 May 2000 15:24:29 -0500

[ An open letter. Anyone has permission to redistribute this letter, verbatim, for no fee. ]

Dear Isabelle:

I am an author that has just completed my first book with IDG, the Linux Programming Bible. I had been very pleased with the way IDG handled the book, process, and legal matters -- until now.

It came to my attention today that you personally, and IDG in general, are sending threatening letters to many members of the Free Software community (of which I am a part) that happen to use the phrase "for dummies" in casual conversation, e-mail, or the title of a webpage.

I must vehemently object to this harassment of my colleagues. These things pose zero risk and no possibility of confusion with your series. If they were printed and sold in bookstores with a yellow cover, I'd easily support your claim.

I feel that this attempt at censoring people that are just trying to do good in the world is despicable and feel that I will have to re-evaluate my future plans to write additional titles with a company that actively is trying to crush members of the Linux community unfortunate enough to use a common English phrase in the course of their daily communications or online documentation.

The specific cases to which I refer include the "Real Beginner's Guide to CVS" guide, which happened to mention farther down that it is "affectionately known as 'CVS for dummies'". I additionally noticed a post on the Slashdot.Org online forum today where you are apparently going after a non-profit group in Australia for using the phrase on a website.

I am left to wonder if I myself may be the target of your pressures by unwittingly using a phrase such as "for dummies" on my own website, in my own e-mail communications, or even on the phone.

I would ask at this time that you ceasee this unwarranted harassment of the good people on the Internet and instead focus on the people that are actually trying to harm you, if any.

I additionally consider it only proper to inform you that I have created a webpage containing the words "for dummies" at http://www.complete.org/news/957731761/index_html

Sincerely,

John Goerzen
jgoerzen@complete.org

References:

• http://www.octapod.org.au/dummies/
  One site you succeeded in bullying.
• http://slashdot.org/articles/00 /05/07/1019231.shtml
  Today's Slashdot story.
• http://slashdot.org/articles/ 99/10/28/1636205_F.shtml
  An earlier Slashdot story detailing your attempts to censor e-mail.
• 15 USC 1125(c)(4) explicitly stating that your representation of having an actionable claim are untrue.
• http://www.users.one.se/~feltby/idgb_s mells/
  Which details other cases of your oppression.
• http://www.kvaleberg.com/html.html
  Another person you succeeded in censoring.

Make your contribution to Civilization! No, not all civilization, but rather you have the chance to take part in our Freeciv Hack 2000 contest to improve Freeciv. Recent improvements include more races and nations, city build lists, and the addition of more CivII rules (paratroopers, more terrain specials). Other improvements such as GUILE scripting, improved AI, hex maps, and stacked combat are being developed. (Read our mailing list archives for more info.)

What is Freeciv Hack 2000? It's a special contest in cooperation with an international term of developers, where you can show off your Linux (and BSD, commercial Unix, BeOS, Java, even Windows) hacking skills to everybody...and win prizes to boot! First prize is the ego gratification of getting your name in the PEOPLE file.

Here's how it works: download the source from ftp.freeciv.org and get to hacking. Everybody with a C compiler will be chosen. If you're chosen, you can show up to our hackfest, which will conveniently be held on your own computer!

Any and all changes and improvements worthy of improving Freeciv (and, by extension, civilization as a whole) will be included in the CVS snapshots and new public releases starting with 1.8.2. So what are you waiting on? Download the source and get hacking!

JMC