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The Fine Manual: Eric Raymond and the RTFM Jerks

“Is Eric Raymond and the RTFM jerk crowd driving away good
contributers and users from free software? That is what I am
beginning to wonder. I think that a lot of people don’t want to get
involved because the community comes across as a bastion of
unrepentant meanness. One of the things the RTFM jerk says is ‘Go
back to windows newbie.’ as well as comments such as. ‘If Linux is
too hard for you, why don’t you just go back to windows.’ after
some newbie complains about the hard time she is having getting her
system to work properly. More comments like ‘if you can’t make it
work, then just go back to what ever worked before.’ This is not
the way to increase freedom for users…”


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