Tribalism Is the Enemy Within, Says Shuttleworth

climenole points out a post from Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth about internal strife in the free software community. He wrote, "Tribalism is when one group of people start to think people from another group are 'wrong by default.' It's the great-granddaddy of racism and sexism. And the most dangerous kind of tribalism is completely invisible: it has nothing to do with someone's 'birth tribe' and everything to do with their affiliations: where they work, which sports team they support, which Linux distribution they love. ... Right now, for a number of reasons, there is a fever pitch of tribalism in plain sight in the free software world. It's sad. It's not constructive. It's ultimately going to be embarrassing for the people involved, because the Internet doesn't forget. It's certainly not helping us lift free software to the forefront of public expectations of what software can be."

Comments

Re:Atari vs. Commodore

[alanebro]

Mod up mod up!

Re:Politics

[ffreeloader]

Capitalism isn't the problem, and the problem cannot be cured by the central planning required by socialism. The problem is greed and a lack of morality and caring about our fellow citizens/neighbors. Free enterprise hurts no one, and denies no freedom if it is engaged in by honest, moral people.

Socialism, by its very design, requires servitude on the part of the individual and cannot control greed. It requires servitude because it puts all control into the power of the government and has no controls built into it to control greed, ambition, and corruption by politicians.

So, if given a choice between the two, I'll take the first choice every time. Both systems are susceptible to greed and dishonest politicians, but one literally cedes individual freedom to the government and the other does not.

The reason our republic is failing is because socialists have placed legislative rules in place that make certain areas of our government and businesses fail, and then point to that failure as the failure of our type of government. It's classic misdirection.

Re:You keep using that word

[ffreeloader]

That you do not understand what socialism is comes through loud and clear from your description of it.

You can claim whatever you want, but it doesn't make your claims true. Someone may have given you that description of socialism, but it is not a true description. Socialism is a form of government. That means it affects every part of the individual's life.

You want to get rid of capitalism and the republic form of government of the US and replace it with individual groups of people(who are not politicians in any meaning of the word) who control the transportation, water and firefighting infrastructure. Really? What kind of stupidity is that? I'd say you haven't thought these ideas through at all. It is very obvious that you have never considered the "unexpected consequences" of what you have accepted as true. How is your view of control over transportation, water and firefighting not government, no matter who does it, come about? Just how do you accomplish this without taking over many businesses? You know, nationalization, because you cannot run these services on a local level with things like national airlines and railroads? Where will you get the power to do this? Do you just expect these companies to roll over and let you take over? Or, do you think you'll need a change in the form of national government that will give you the power to do this? Just what does that mean? Does the national government will now only control water, firefighting, and transportation?

Just how do you propose to get rid of what you see as the evils of capitalism, or do you see the "evils of capitalism" as only the way transportation, firefighting, and water distribution are done in a republic in which capitalism is practiced? I find you to have a very poorly thought out political philosophy.
 

Re:Mr. Shuttleworth should try to understand himse

[jedidiah]

> Yeah except that whole part about making Linux easier to use, and accessable to average users.

And what did Ubuntu do in this regard exactly?

Stole someone else's package manager?