04.10.08
An interesting little phenomenon
So, earlier today, Jeff Atwood wrote a rather interesting post about people who aren’t willing to pay money for software. And in there, he made this comment:
It’s tempting to ascribe this to the “cult of no-pay”, programmers and users who simply won’t pay for software no matter how good it is, or how inexpensive it may be. These people used to be called pirates. Now they’re open source enthusiasts.
And there’s been the predictable outcry of blog posts reading that as saying that open source enthusiasts are pirates, and saying things like this:
Jeff Atwood’s blog Coding Horror is one of my favorites. Until yesterday, I’d been recommending it unreservedly. Jeff’s made a big stumble, and I hope he corrects it soon….
Right. First off, anyone who’s read Jeff’s blog and is halfway observant knows a couple of things about him. He’s intelligent, and he’s outspoken about his opinions. If he wanted to say that open-source enthusiasts were the same as pirates, he would come right out and say it, and give you several paragraphs of reasons why he thought that. He wouldn’t just imply it in a throwaway sentence like that. So it ought to be obvious to any reasonable reader that that’s not what he intended, regardless of how he worded it.
More than that, though, I find the reaction of “I can no longer unreservedly recommend this blog” to be quite interesting. Suppose that Jeff did intend to say that open-source enthusiasts were pirates? I don’t agree with that, obviously, but so what? I don’t think I’ve ever read a blog that I completely agree with; that’s what makes conversation worthwhile, and if he has a good argument to back it up, it’s probably worth reading even if I think it’s erroneous. To me, what makes a blog worth recommending is when it presents intelligent arguments based on reasonable facts, in a way that I find interesting and thought-provoking and on subjects that I think are worth reading about. Making a “stumble” doesn’t change any of that.