Re:Zed Shaw: Why I (A/L)GPL
by fogus on Tuesday July 14, 2009 @07:27AM
(#703473)
I'm not sure that you have an authority to make such judgments. The way he is on his personal website may have nothing to do with his professional behavior. We are wired in, so we see his rants and internalize them, but that doesn't mean that they present an accurate picture of reality.
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I had a heck of a time trying to get my company to use one of his excellent libraries. Why? Because they saw Zed's "professional" home page for the library and documentation and didn't want to be associated with that kind of persona. "It's all about the image," they told me. I disagreed with them, but there you have it. None of these folks were "wired in".
If it's all about the image they shouldn't be using half of the libraries out there. Most of them have scant documentation, ugly websites, hard-to-use bug tracking software, or some other problem.
By the way, who exactly is "they"? If it's management, they should know that you have to trust knowledge workers to know and do their jobs. Management != programmers.