bwinton

"the impression I'm taking away from this dispute is that Richard is being banned not so much for his tone, but more for saying things that are true and that the people wielding the power to censor him are unwilling to hear."

I'm saddened that you have this impression, given that most of the things he complains about are duplicates of bugs that other people were able to report in a civil manner. As a developer, I know my software has bugs, and am appreciative when users let me know what they are. As a person, I don't feel I should have to put up with sarcastic, snarky bullshit when finding out about the bugs, or when trying to fix them.

"The success of open source rests on participation, and participation is a two-way street."

I know of at least one Thunderbird developer who quit because the atmosphere in Bugzilla was hostile. I don't know how many people decided not to participate because of comments like Richard's. Participation isn't the same as welcoming everybody, no matter what their effect on the community.

Also, I would totally read a blog post about the power politics of open source. :)

How many brilliant developers have you not worked with, because they looked at that kind of comment, and decided that they would rather spend their spare time working on a project where they _wouldn't_ get told that their fingers should be cut off to prevent them ever writing any code?