Hi BAHCL, > FreeDOS mailing list has never been the friendly place to me dispise its > noble goal that win my admiration. Conflicts among members over minor
You could have found a more positive opening for your mail ;-) > issues are not uncommon, insulting words like fool, idiot, stupid are > just usual as it also happens in other forums, and nobody was punished. I think there are some cultural differences between the western and the asiatic members of this mailing list here... When Tom made his "legendary" statement that one of Jack's drivers did something "stupid", Jack felt deeply insulted for many months. If, on the other hand, Tom had said that one of my drivers did something stupid, I would probably have replied that I do not expect the "stupid" thing to cause malfunction. Or I would have replied that my driver can indeed be improved on that point. Or I would have replied that my driver deliberately does things that way, and would have entered a discussion about why my driver is correct. But I would not have ended up hating Tom or even the whole FreeDOS community for many months either. I do realize that Jack and Johnson have different style here: For example I know that Jack often wanted people to be admonished / rebuked (is that the right word?) because they "insulted" him or his drivers on the list. While my general assumption is that there is no "policy" about what you are "allowed" to say to each other, and that when you feel insulted, you should just complain yourself. But... > IMHO, the decision to blacklist Johnson should be the last resort if he > has ever commited any mistake deliberately after being warned, also > there should be rules and regulations announced before the action taken, > the verdict needs to be transparent. I do not see any rules and > regulations before and after the whole matter. What policy is going to > carried out? What guideline the members should follow? It makes Johnson > feel he is the victim randomly picked at instead of understanding his > ?wrongdoing? So the decision is hurting him more than helping him. Johnson is no random victim, but there are no laws or policies either. And yes Johnson has been warned repeatedly. The guideline is that you should not try to poison the mood in the community, and unfortunately, that was exactly what was happening. It had started back in the time when Jack himself exchanged emails with us: Long discussions filled with insults finally made Bernd decide that FreeDOS is no friendly place to be, so he would rather leave and play Warcraft instead of maintaining beta9 any more... The problems with Johnson started a few months ago, when he started to praise QHIMEM whenever an, even minor, problem with FDHIMEM was mentioned. For example somebody would ask if his configuration was correct, and Johnson would reply (not literally) "no, because you do not use QHIMEM, so you waste 500 bytes of DOS memory". Of course this made the people who maintain FDHIMEM (mainly Michael at the moment) upset. It is okay to have alternatives - competition usually motivates all involved companies to improve their products. But in a small project like ours, it would be better to focus on improving existing components rather than rewriting some of them from scratch. In addition, QHIMEM is closed source, and because Jack still feels like being at war with FreeDOS, he would not help us if bugs are found in QHIMEM. In short, he is just sitting there with his driver and laughing at us because our driver is, in his opinion, very bad. I have repeatedly tried to ask Jack what bugs he sees in FDHIMEM and has avoided in QHIMEM, but he is very explicit about the point that he does not want our software to improve in any way, because he actually enjoys our "failure". > Johnson has a long history in FreeDOS, he was also willing to help and > just a humble fellow. Why sentenced him the heaviest penalty for the > first time he irritated others. Why is it permenantly? Is there a way > to appeal? Unfortunately, Johnson stopped to help FreeDOS and became just a messenger for Jack. He became infected by the idea that some people here are stupid and should be punished. Maybe even that FreeDOS should be destroyed. I think you understand why it felt appropriate to "silence him" for a while. He can still mail each of us directly, and I think it would be okay to let him join the list again if he tries to be more diplomatic this time. For "further reading", two mail snippets. The first one is from Johnson to me, in 4/2006, about discussing bugs in drivers and about Jack's harsh style when commenting on bugs in our drivers. I disagree about the point that the one who knows better should spice his teachings with insulting the apprentices. Especially if the latter are generally smart people as well, and should be treated as equal, not as apprentices. Still, for me personally, it is okay to find bug descriptions hidden between harsh words as long as those help me to debug my stuff. I ignore the insults. > > Yes. From the technical standpoint it is good to have feedback, > > even if it is wrapped into insults. > > Maybe you're in a totally different world, in China or America (long > time ago), apprentice got beating and whipping, live like a slave > because he need to learn from the master, this style was harsh but > you can learn most out of him. > > Can you change you point of view, that IS not insults, but to whip > you "up to the standard"? But I guess you can't put down your > little pride. The seconds snippet is from Jack, 3 weeks ago, and shows that Jack is not exactly interested in a friendly FreeDOS community which is working towards improving the FreeDOS software. I do hope that Barnum was less sadistic and less drowned in hate. You can also see that Johnson's current mission is not to be a friendly FreeDOS community member, but rather to help Jack to express his hate against FreeDOS. Bad news about a once humble and friendly guy. Michael is the one living in Illinois. > Re: extra QHIMEM items, no-comment to prevent giving that BASTARD in > Illinois any more info. > > Re: Hall and your "clique" of NAZIS doing a GREAT job of KILLING > FreeDOS, all by YOURSELVES, I might add, others will surely realize > that FD-HIMEM will NOT get "corrected" in any sort... > > I can just relax and watch you ALL cut your OWN throats! "The > Greatest Show on Earth", as our P. T. Barnum once called his Circus! [...] > However, I will Thank You for having done what I could never have > done. You have "sealed the fate" of FreeDOS in the Far East. I > appreciate the extent of Johnson's "contacts" in Hong Kong, Mainland > China, Taiwan and all of Asia. > > Johnson will now tell them all what happened and to AVOID FD-HIMEM, > FD-EMM386 etc.! Any help re: details he shall surely get from me! As > they are still a bit ill-at-ease with Westerners and DO NOT like > watching "one of their own" BEAT UP like Johnson was, I believe you > will now find FreeDOS "Flat-Ass DEAD" in the Far East! > > GREAT job, Jim! You and your little "clique" of NAZIS really DID > need to be STOPPED! Glad you and that BASTARD in Illinois are now > doing so well at it! I hope that Johnson will eventually realize that his goal in life should not be to "stop a clique of nazis" but rather to promote progress (even in software not written by Jack) instead of hate. Pity that we lost Jack, because besides hating FreeDOS a lot, he also is a good programmer who started out as somebody who wanted to share his work to let others enjoy it - years ago. Now if we could get Johnson back, in some friendlier state of mind than Jack's, it would be appreciated. At least by me. Regards, Eric ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? 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