Re: I'm trying to set up docbook-tools...

["Eric S. Raymond" <esr at thyrsus dot com>]

David C. Mason <dcm@redhat.com>:
> Please stop referring to people's work with words that are meant only
> to insult.

David, you ain't *seen* me being insulting yet.  So far, all I've done
is call a spade a spade.  You, and Deb, and Mark, and Norman, can
start being offended the day I don't respect you enough to criticize
your work.  Criticism is the tribute you pay adults who are capable of
better than they have done.  Indifference or dismissal would be the
real insult.

> I'm sure plenty of people could refer to your essays with
> venom, they perhaps choose not to as they know your heart is in the
> right place for writing them in the first place.

And since when is "having your heart in the right place" worth a damn?
If that's the best thing anyone could find to say about my work, *I'd*
be insulted.  I hold myself to higher standards than that.  You should too.

> > -- basically so I could pull Red Hat's nuts out of the fire after
> > Bob Young asked me nicely to fix the godawful mess their old
> > TeX-centric production process had degenerated into.  
> 
> What a gentleman like approach to telling me you worked on it.

The *point* is, I was called in to solve a nasty problem under
emergency conditions, and I did it.  I didn't get a lot of thanks for
it, either.  After "Linux Undercover" Bob decided that the mere fact
of designating me the editor of the book and putting my name on the
cover didn't actually mean that I could have editorial control.  I
declined to produce any more books unless my authority was equal to my
responsibility, and there hasn't been another edition since.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric S. Raymond</a>

Let us hope our weapons are never needed --but do not forget what 
the common people knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An 
armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the 
final defense against tyranny.
   If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only 
the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of 
our rulers.  Only the government -- and a few outlaws.  I intend to 
be among the outlaws.
        -- Edward Abbey, "Abbey's Road", 1979