FOSSSL, Slashdot and Bullshit
2005.08.29
There are times when you wish you were Oxton. Not just because he is a great designer, but also because he’s one of the best known wordsmiths around when it comes to, um, using expletives creatively. And this is a time I can do with some good swear words.
We are having a FOSS week in Sri Lanka, with many LAMP gurus coming down for the FOSSSL conference, with a lot of activities organized by LKLUG and LSF. And recently, it was slashdotted. Only the editors “upgraded” Anuradha’s original post title “Sri Lanka Declares a FOSS Week” to “Sri Lanka Declares an Open Source Weak”.
Shit happened.
From the comments:
AN Open Source Week. Seriously.. are we outsourcing editorial work to India, too?
Yes, all your job are belong to us. We are not India, btw.
Good one. But it was your editors who screwed it.
Now that Sri Lanka supports open source, 2005 is sure to be the year of the Linux desktop!
Ever heard of Web Services on Apache? Look where most of the developers are from.
Mama, can I have a magic box for my birthday?
OK, I give up.
Some of these comments are funny. Some are stupid. Some just piss me off.
Just for the record, we in Sri Lanka know what we’re doing. In an email today, Anuradha mentioned:
And let’s not worry too much. I like Mahathma Gandhi’s quote … extensively used by RH: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.
18 Comments
Comments Feed
Mahangu
August 29th, 2005 at 9:38 pm
I’m pissed off too but.. have I missed something, or are we actually taking slashdot comments seriously here? :) Come on, we all know that /. thrives on trolling these days. Besides, why should we care about uneducated dipshits who don’t know basic geography… FOSSSL is gonna rock, with or w/o a dumb /. post.
Andrea
August 29th, 2005 at 9:49 pm
> Yes, all your job are belong to us.
This is hilarious!
Can I apologize for the ignorance of everyone in the US that doesn’t know geography? Good luck on FOSS weak [sic]!
Prabhath
August 29th, 2005 at 10:23 pm
Mahangu: You’re right. Linus said it some time back.
Andrea: No worries about the “geographically challenged”. We have our own lot here too :)
John Oxton
August 30th, 2005 at 1:48 am
Fuck ‘em they are all bar stewards, or at least will be with their lack of talent… okay, so do I win a prize now?
mat
August 30th, 2005 at 3:30 am
We all have predispositions. Whether it’s a country, person or an experience - it’s an inherent quality in people. I’ve heard some good ones on New Zealand.
Thankfully being ignorant to others is another habitual characteristic.
Prabhath
August 30th, 2005 at 9:28 am
John: Thanks. I never had the guts to say fuck on my blog. You have already won the award for the best fucking design. How dare you ask for more?
Mat: Yeah, you do need thick skin, espcially when it’s brown. On the other hand, the design folk of the blogosphere have been very kind to me.
Asela
August 30th, 2005 at 9:55 pm
I’ll definitely miss it. Good luck with it guys. Sure it’s gonna rock.
Ditto. Man, my skin has grown inches thick for these 10 months. We should seriously think about something like, err.. nuclear power plant in Sri Lanaka.
Lance Muller
August 30th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Dudes, this /. thing is freakily funny… anyways, FOSS Week is running along smoothly, we at Liquimedia promise you that its going to be a week filled with much openess, and much merrymaking within the open-source community and that we’ll give you almost error free (minor fuck-ups cant be helped), easy-to-use event and a gloriously fun-filled FOSS Week. so there. So there!
Lance Muller, Creative Director
LIQUIDMEDIA
National FOSS Week Event Managers
Lance Muller
August 30th, 2005 at 10:48 pm
and anybody who doens like it can FOSS OFF!
Prabhath
August 30th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
Holy shit. The event managers are here too? I wonder who else is reading this blog - suddenly I’m scared to talk about clients :D
miko matsumura
August 31st, 2005 at 12:06 am
Pretty dumb comments from some ignorant people.
Infravio’s development is done in Chennai, a few hours flight from Colombo. We are very proud to work with people at WSO2 and members of LSF on world-class open source software incubated at Apache.
Congratulations on FOSSL, great work!
sittingnut
August 31st, 2005 at 3:13 am
most of /. comments were moderated funny.
we sri lankans take things way too personally and have no sense of humour.
Prabhath
August 31st, 2005 at 9:32 am
Ah, an enlightened one hath arrived. Don’t worry sittingnut, we are just a bunch of fuckwits playing around, enjoying our lack of sense of humour.
Lance Muller
August 31st, 2005 at 11:16 am
ha ha ha ha… yes, we are watching you.
go figure. Sri Lankans (well most anyway) don’t really have a sense of humour… watch our teledramas (you see any fun ones?) watch our movies (seen any with a real sense of humour?) are you kidding me? (Most) Sri Lankans wouldnt know a good joke if it bit them on the ass.
FOSS Week is going to be great… and it would help if the open source community in Sri Lanka really band together and show their fullest support. Viva le Open Source
www.foss.lk | www.fosssl.org
Detritus
August 31st, 2005 at 12:40 pm
Yes Yes, Lance Muller. We have no sense of humour. But we can sense a shameless advertiser a million miles off. You seem to have gotten enough mileage showcasing your site as it is.
Now bugger off.
james governor
August 31st, 2005 at 3:06 pm
wasn’t sure if trackbacks would go through so here are my thoughts on the subject:
http://www.redmonk.com/jgovernor/archives/000929.html
Best Wishes to all Sri Lankans!
Lance Muller
August 31st, 2005 at 4:47 pm
Well, I am only advertising the event… after all, thats my job innit? Thank you, as long as you noticed. :o)
Nidahas » It happ&hellip
September 12th, 2005 at 7:37 pm
[…] e, but that is no excuse to turn frustration in to indifference, or worse, hatred. On the Slashdot bullshit entry here at Nidahas Mat left an interesting comment: We all have […]