Bonum Certa Men Certa

How the “Zealot” Label Gets Used by Hypocrites

Portrait of Gandhi
Was Gandhi “a zealot” for sticking to principles?



Summary: Self-appointed judge and jury call "zealots" those whom they are overzealous over

THERE is an interesting trend we have been noticing. Apple/Mac enthusiasts like Matt Asay are calling FOSS advocates who are actually GNU/Linux users "zealots". Asay is doing this repeatedly. Yes, apparently sticking to FOSS makes it a case of "zealotry" now. That's how compromise gets justified, by ridiculing those who don't. Tarus Balog from OpenNMS is rather disturbed by this.



I didn’t make it to OSCON this year (thanks for everyone who voted for us for the CCA, by the way, even though we lost out again to Firebird) and I am quietly thankful for it, because it seems like the conference kicked off a new round of hyperbole and hypocrisy from the fauxpen source crowd and I’m going to try to stay out of it (instead of any kind of rational discussion, this round seems even more full of ad hominem attacks).

I’ve been labeled both an open source purist and a zealot simply because of my assertion that the term “open source” is defined by the open source definition. And while no one calls me a pragmatist, only a pragmatist could have kept a company like OpenNMS going through good times and bad without investment.


As Dana Blankenhorn points out:

Open source advocates still called zealots



[...]

We are no longer talking about something that is unproven, or risky. The open source model is a decade old. It has already saved enterprises, small businesses, and individuals literally billions of dollars. It has empowered programmers, it has built new fortunes. It’s not communism, but capitalism at its very best.


Another person suggests that the use of the word "zealots" is supposed to associate FOSS with "terrorism". We saw this before when Rob Enderle wrote in relation to FOSS advocates: “I have a hard time seeing the Zealots as any different from terrorist… I strongly believe that if September 11 showed us anything, it was that zealots...”

Our reader Goblin compares this to a Monty Python scene when he writes: "He's not the messiah he's a very naughty boy!"

We sometimes wonder if people who are not even FOSS users are trying to hijack the voice of FOSS. Black Duck comes to mind.

As one of our readers correctly points out, some of those who accuse of "zealotry" are simply "overzealous for themselves". This is hypocrisy. Even Microsoft is a very zealous, but big entities are rarely thought of as "zealots", who are conveniently perceived as a small minority (and thus "mistaken").

Recent Techrights' Posts

Alex Oliva, the Potential 'Successor' of RMS, Has a New Web Site
More freedom for Alex Oliva
Azure is Turning 17 This Year, Still Losing Money and Staff
Hallmark of pyramid schemes, deriving "value" out of things that do not really exist?
 
Links 16/02/2025: Oligarchs "Collect Your Data and Control Your World", Global Temperatures Shoot Up
Links for the day
Promoting Microsoft Windows With LLM Slop
What is the policy at BetaNews regarding LLM slop?
Links 16/02/2025: "Microsoft Is Laying Off Employees" and Internal Dissent Brewing at Facebook Over Regime Complicity
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 15, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 15, 2025
Links 15/02/2025: Harms to Health, Public Domain, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: On Autistic People, AuraGem Over HTTPS
Links for the day
The Cyber Show (C|S) Speaks of the "Rise of the Nerd Reich."
This 'Valentine Episode' is quite good
Strong Momentum for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Winter Approaches Its End in Boston or in the Northern Hemisphere
FSF's founder, Richard Stallman, gives another talk in Italy in 9 days from now
The 'Drunken Plagiarists' Are Harming Journalism About GNU/Linux
They lessen the incentive to do real journalism abut GNU/Linux
Female Nazis and racist Swiss women
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Links 15/02/2025: Erasing of American Science and Tesla SLAPPing Critics
Links for the day
IDG 'Reviews' of GNU/Linux Now Contain LLM Slop
It's typically ads or commercials... or sometimes spin disguised as news
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: Spectacles and "Before Sunset", Moving Domains Out of the US
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Only $17,482 Million Left, "Cash on Hand" Sank 40 Billion Dollars in 2 Years
Microsoft runs low on money in the bank
YouTube Layoffs Mean That YouTube is Still Losing a Lot of Money (Net Income or Profit Almost Definitely Negative)
In more recent years Google defunded many vloggers
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025